Hope Springs Eternal
by angelofthelightanddark
Summary: The legends of the Fae are numerous, many going unheard by mortal ears. But sometimes, the truth of those legends is lost in the telling, becoming fragmented and disparate. Or the tale of the Prince of Sorrows and the mortal Godslayer.
1. Chapter 1

_Listen close, for this is a tale, a tale older than our little village, older than even the great kingdoms over the sea._

 _This is a tale of the Fae folk, of that fair and fearsome folk who live in step with the seasons._

 _Once upon a time, in a land of White crystal, in the land of cold Winter, there lived a Fae prince, and so sharp and deadly was his blades that few dared to challenge him, and many feared him._

 _But they feared the King more. For the King was as wicked and dark as the Fae folk can be._

 _The Prince, worried for his people, rallied them against the wicked King, leading them into battle._

 _But many of his people also sided with the King, so blinded by his power were they._

 _The Prince mourned for his lost people, but still he led his own forces against the King, for if the King were to defeat the Prince, then all the Winter Fae would be lost to the madness of the King._

 _In the midst of these long battles, which stretched on for centuries, there came a mortal woman, an Alfar of the northern tribes, who sought a way to defeat the King of Winter._

 _Her search led her to the Prince, who after a time, saw that they were alike in mind, and forged an alliance with her. As the years passed, the mortal woman found that she could not consider a life without the Prince, and the Prince, Fae as he was, found himself in the same quandary._

 _In secret, he gave to her a totem, a fragment of his own being, so that no matter where they were, they would always be together._

 _They found the truth behind the King's power, that he had contracted with an ancient being known as Tirnoch that blinded Fae with her power. The mortal woman confronted Tirnoch, wounding her grievously._

 _But Tirnoch dealt a blow just as deadly, and the mortal woman lived only long enough to return to her Prince, before she succumbed to death._

 _The Prince grieved, placing her upon the funeral pyre himself, and left the totem between her closed hands, for he wished that she would bear it into the otherworld, where all mortals go in death._

 _Time, as it is wont to do, passed, and the war between the Prince's Fae and the King's grew bitter and colder with each death dealt._

 _One day, a Fae of Summer came to the Prince, and spoke of a magic wrought in the west, beneath a tower of mighty stone. The gnomish folk, who delve deep into the old magics and blend it with their own knowledge had discovered a secret of life that had been unknown to the young races of Amalur._

 _It was said, the Summer Fae told the Prince, that their experiment had succeeded but that the corrupted Winter Fae had infiltrated and destroyed the tower and all inside._

 _The Prince, curious of such new things, asked the Summer Fae to investigate, for even if the tower was destroyed, something might be gained from the ruins. After all, if the gnomes had found a secret of life, what else might they have discovered?_

 _The Summer Fae agreed and left the land of Winter eagerly, for the Summer Fae are not made to linger long in the realms of Winter._

 _The Prince's forces won and lost battle after battle, deadlocked with the forces of the King, and all the while strange stories of changing Fates came from across the sea._

 _The Prince took little notice of these stories as he was almost ever in battle, for his grief sharpened his anger and made fierce his blades on the battlefield._

 _And the day came when a stranger arrived on the shores of Winter as a great siege was broken upon the fortress at Mel Senshir. With that siege broken, the Prince's forces won a great victory against their corrupted brethren, and it was the evening after the battle, that the stranger came to the Prince with a proposal._

 _The stranger spoke of the power behind the King, of what had corrupted the Winter Fae, and so cast the land in chaos. The stranger offered to join their forces to his, that they might defeat the King together._

 _The Prince, suspicious of the stranger, who stood before him hooded and cloaked, their face hidden in shadow, demanded to know how they had found such information, for few save he and his lost love had known the truth._

 _The stranger, who watched him with golden eyes, pushed back her hood and declared that she knew the truth because she had found it, sought it out and died for it._

 _For the Prince saw his love standing before him again._

 _"How is such a thing possible?" he cried, for he had laid her body upon the pyre himself, and set the torch beneath, standing vigil throughout that long grief-stricken night._

 _"I do not know," said she, "I awoke in a tower of stone, with naught but your totem upon my breast and no memory of how I came thither."_

 _The Prince, awestruck by this turn of Fate, embraced her, kissed her, and long was their idyll in the hollow of the Fae._

 _At last his love bid him farewell, for she could not stay. The being that had slain her once was weakened greatly, and she knew now how to slay it properly and end this war of the Fae that had stretched on for so long._

 _The Prince would have accompanied her, fought beside her in battle once more, but she hushed him gently. "You are a Prince of your people," she said, "you cannot abandon them for a mortal such as I. There are still battles to be fought, my love. I will come to you again, before we make our final push to the King."_

 _The Prince could not argue against her but kissed her again. "Come back to me," he said, "my heart could not bear the loss of you, now that we have found each other."_

 _His love smiled, kissed him and bade him farewell._

 _It was autumn when she came to him again, armed for war, clad in armor of Fae make and carrying a sword of gleaming silver._

 _With her allies and his army, they marched on the capital of the Winter Fae, defeating many a foe together._

 _The King of Winter soon found himself fighting the Prince, and such was their battle that the Fae around the two parted and avoided them, so fierce was their anger and rage._

 _The Prince's love, the mortal who wore a Fae totem at her breast, slipped beneath the castle along more secret paths, avoiding the battle for the more important task of slaying Tirnoch._

 _She found her in the deepest depths, surrounded by hideous creatures who wailed and shrieked._

 _But these did not frighten the woman, and she drew her sword and one-by-one the creatures lay dead at her feet._

 _She advanced to where Tir noch stood cackling at her._

 _"You may have slain me once," she called to Tirnoch, "But Fate has decided that I must live. And I will slay **you** this time!"_

 _Tirnoch only laughed. Their battle shook the earth, made dark the skies, and even the Prince, who fought his own battle, paused to listen, fearful for his love's safety._

 _But the King, who recognized the sound for what it was, and knew his ally might be doomed, fought with renewed vigor for he would rather take his enemy with him than go down to death alone._

 _The Prince, tiring and at last seeing an opportunity to end the fighting, drove his blades deep into the King, wrenching them free with a scream of victory._

 _Hearing such a cry, the remaining Fae of the King's army scattered, fleeing before the Prince's vengeful warriors._

 _The Prince alone did not chase the fleeing Fae, turning his gaze to the castle, where he knew his love to be fighting her own battle._

 _It is said that Fae do not weep as we mortals do, but it is also said that the Prince cried tears of joy upon seeing his love come limping down the castle steps._

 _They kissed, embracing one another as if they could not bear to be apart ever again._

 _With the battle won, and the King dead, the Prince ascended the throne, becoming the High King of Winter. His love, mortal though she was, was the first to pledge allegiance to this new King of Winter._

 _But even joy and happiness cannot last forever..._


	2. Chapter 2

It's a year after the defeat of Gadflow, in the springtime, as Winter fades into Summer's reign, that Liriel comes to Cydan, reuniting in the rebuilt keep of Seawatch.

She is worn, more tired than when Cydan had bade her farewell before she had gone to investigate rumors of Kollosae in the south.

But she receives him with open arms and a happy grin, nonetheless.

"My King," she says, smiling as he joins her beneath one of the sprawling trees, its boughs laden with snow, glittering in the hard sunlight. "How did your first season go?"

"Well enough," Cydan says. "We've managed to uproot and melt most of the prismire and we're dumping it into the cave where you fought Tirnoch. And there's been some new growth of crystals, proper Winter ones in the throne room."

"Your crown as well," Liriel says, touching the edge of the silver crown of Winter, which has gleaming white crystals set into the brow. "I saw that the Hallowed tree is healing quite nicely."

"A minor miracle in all honesty," Cydan mutters. "Given how many mortal bodies were lain about its roots and buried in its soil."

He grimaces; restoring the tree was an ongoing battle, as the mortal corpses had to dug up and disposed of. The tree was of Fae creation, Fae bodies would nourish it best, not mortal ones.

And they had a lot of Fae corpses on their hands. The Tuatha had been slain in droves and many of the bodies now lay beneath preserving magics until they could be returned to proper soil.

Still, the land was healing which was more than he could say for what had happened under Gadflow's rule. Cydan remembers how the land had changed from icy plateaus beset by howling blizzards, snow blanketing the earth from the heart of Alabastra to the coast of Mel Senshir to muggy forests with warm winds drifting throughout the land of Winter.

The fiery haze of Tirnoch had melted Winter's cold, and though Cydan could find some measure of beauty in the warmth of Summer, he found none in overturned order that Gadflow had brought.

Winter was to be cold and Summer to be warm; they were not meant to linger in each other's seasons.

Gadflow had sought to turn the Cycle on its head for the power of a false God, and for a time it had worked. But then came the Fate-touched, Cydan muses.

Liriel, Siege-breaker and Godslayer.

A child of the Alfar peoples, who watches him with golden eyes as she lies beside him, with his totem at her breast.

"You look pensive, my King," she says quietly, snow drifting down from one of the branches to settle against her pale hair.

"Merely considering the past," Cydan says. The title he now bears doesn't seem as out of place coming from her lips.

"Hmm," she says, studying him for a moment before beckoning him down to her.

Cydan leans over her, resting his weight on his forearms on either side of her head. She is smaller than him, a creature of slender build, with lean and wiry muscles.

"I am somewhat cold, my King," she says slyly, "perhaps you might offer me some of your warmth?"

Cydan laughs. "A rather odd thing to ask of a Winter Fae, Godslayer."

Liriel smiles mischievously, "But you have shared such before, Cydan…or do I no longer have such familiarity with you?" her tone is soft, but Cydan can hear the faintest uncertainty in her voice.

Cydan doesn't reply, but lets his actions be his answer, leaning down and capturing her mouth with his.

She makes a quiet sound against him, hands twining into his hair, pressing him close.

"You know," she murmurs as he draws back, "I don't think I'm ever as happy as when I'm with you, my King."

Cydan hears something stir behind them, a rustling that pulls his attention away for the smallest of moments, and then Liriel makes a soft gasp, going limp against him, hands falling away to lie in the snow.

She is still staring up at him, eyes bright and golden, her blue skin stark against winter's white.

"Oh," she says quietly, and there are tears sliding silently down her cheeks, "She did not lie to me."

"What?!" Cydan asks, looking her over; there was no injury, no crimson blood spilling over his hands, staining his dark skin with her lifesblood.

"Tirnoch swore she'd curse my life," Liriel says, giving a cough. Blood trickles down her chin. "That when I was the happiest, she would take it away from me."

There are tears at her eyes. "Cydan, I-" she convulses, vomiting blood into the snow.

Cydan curses, and shouts for the guards to bring a healer. Seawatch is ever populated by Winter Fae and there is a healer on staff who is oath sworn to Liriel; the Godslayer having been the mastermind behind the keep's restoration and repopulation in the year after the Crystal War.

He cradles Liriel in his arms, trying to keep her from hurting herself more in her convulsions.

The healer, Conni, hurtles across the snow, skidding to a halt beside Liriel, running her dark hands across Liriel's brow.

"What is this, your Majesty?!" she asks fearfully.

"A curse," Cydan says, wiping bright blood away from Liriel's mouth as the Alfar coughs. "Can you do anything for her?"

"I-I-," Conni sputters, helpless, then her mouth firms into a hard line, "I'll do what I can, your Majesty."

White magic threads from her hands, wrapping about Liriel's body, curling around her neck. The Alfar stills immediately, the wet rasping of her breathing the only sign that she still lived.

Conni is motionless, in the way that all healers examining patients via magic are, almost as if she is frozen solid.

The minutes slide by slowly, and it feels like eons, even to Cydan who by his very nature finds the passage of time almost meaningless.

"There is nothing else I can do for her, your Majesty," Conni says at last, her tone bitter. Her face is grave with sorrow.

"Nothing?" Cydan asks sharply, glaring at the healer.

"Nothing for the moment, your Majesty," Conni elaborates with a helpless shrug of her shoulders. "I've put her in a painless sleep, but that's the most I can do for her."

Cydan blinks, registering the words as an idea occurs to him. "For the moment, you said?"

"We might be able to find something if given more time, your Majesty," Conni says. "But I do not know how long it will take. This is a curse unlike anything I've ever come across and I fear that I do not know enough to try to break it."

"Can we safely move her?"

"You wish to move her to Alabastra, your Majesty?" Conni guesses.

"Yes," Cydan says, "We've better healers there and the area where she would have been cursed is not far. It may give us better answers as how to break the curse."

"Or," Conni says gently, "It may make it worse, your Majesty."

"If you have a better idea," Cydan says shortly, "I'd love to hear it."

"My King," Conni says, her voice soft and quiet as Cydan has ever heard, "she is mortal, our lady Godslayer is. You are Fae, as unlike her as any could be. Might it not be more merciful to end her suffering here, rather than stretch it out into what could years, centuries even in an attempt to find a counter-curse?"

"You are her friend, healer," Cydan says, and his words are as sharp as a fresh hewn ice-blade, "And yet you counsel so?"

"My duty is to preserve life, your Majesty," Conni says, "to be held on the edge of the knife as she is? That is not preservation, it is cruelty. And even you, my King, I know are not so callous."

"Then you do not know me," Cydan says coldly, "We'll move her to Alabastra, you can come along or stay here. Your decision."

Conni gapes at him as he lifts Liriel, cradling her close, "Your Majesty!"

"Well?" he asks, standing.

Conni stands, "I'll come with you, your Majesty."

Cydan gives her a curt nod. "Come on then."

* * *

Time in the end, is all that they have.

"It's not so bad," Liriel slurs as she wakes in Alabastra's heart, in Amythn.

"I beg to differ," Cydan says, clasping one of her hands. "I like you alive and well, Liriel."

"I mean," Liriel continues, oblivious to the blood that drips down her chin, that Cydan brushes away, "I got to see you again, and we beat Gadflow."

She coughs again, tilting her head to get a better look at Cydan.

"Guess there's a price for everything, Cydan," she mumbles.

"We'll find a curse-breaker just for your particularly bad string of luck, my love," Cydan says.

Liriel laughs or tries to. It ends up being a harsh, rattling cough that reminds Cydan too much of her first death.

"We are ever the tragic couple, aren't we?" she gasps. "The mortal Godslayer and the Prince of Sorrows."

"And yet I do not regret it," Cydan says, and he doesn't. This mortal has brought him his vengeance and kindled a fire of resolve in his heart unlike any other.

Liriel smiles at him, a gentle exhale of breath escaping her as Cydan presses a kiss to her knuckles.

"Neither do I," she murmurs. "What are you going to do?"

"We'll put you in stasis," Cydan says, "Until we've found a cure."

"Oh, my love," Liriel sighs, her mouth gleaming with red. "You are ever one to fight against impossible odds."

"We won against Gadflow," Cydan says.

"True," Liriel coughs. "Cydan-"

"Sleep, love," Cydan murmurs, leaning over to press a kiss to her lips. "I will wake you, no matter how long it takes."

Liriel only smiles sleepily at him and then the spell settles around her, her bright eyes slipping closed and she is gone.

Cydan watches her for a long time, tasting iron on his tongue before he places the crystalline lid over her bed, and departs.

Behind him, waiting for her Prince's kiss, the mortal Godslayer sleeps.

 _And it is said she sleeps still._


	3. Chapter 3

Once upon a time, in a glade on an island where Fall meets Spring in an endless Cycle, were two sisters born.

Spring was the first, waking to a world filled with light and pale blossoms, the beginning of life. Fall woke within her hollow of amber and golden leaves, decay and fading her birthright.

Spring clad her bower with daffodils, amarylis, and iris, and sang her song of joy into the bright morning light, and her sister, Fall, followed her song to that lively hollow where life began its reign after the long winter's cold.

She greeted her sister, warm and fond despite her season, and crowned her High Queen of Spring, her simple crown of white birch upon her pale hair.

Spring in turn, crowned her sister High Queen of Fall, placing a crown of maple upon her dark hair.

Over time, centuries upon centuries, through the tumble and turn of the seasons, their Courts sang and made merry in their home, keeping to their duties as all Fae must.

But by and by, Spring grew sad and distant, so that one day, Fall spoke to her sister, saying, "Dearest sister, your smile is less bright, your flowers wilting, what has made you so sad?"

"You might think me foolish, dear sister," Spring said, melancholy.

Fall assured her that she would not.

"You know that I love this place," Spring said, "and I love you and our courts most dearly. But my soul longs for another to stand beside me in this kingdom of beginnings and rebirth. A partner in all things, which you, sister, cannot be."

Fall was silent for a long time, and Spring grew more forlorn as she looked at her sister.

"Then you must find one to stand beside you," Fall said firmly. "And though I love you, I cannot do this. We are sisters, and seasons opposite. If you are to find a partner for your crown, it must be of Summer or of Winter. I will make ready a chariot for you, and I hope that you will return swiftly with a partner who is your equal."

Spring wept for her sister's kindess, embraced her, kissed her cheek and set out next morning.

Spring traveled many moons over hill and over dale, finding at length the green woods of Summer, ruled by its fair High King.

The High King welcomed her gladly, for Spring is a cousin of Summer and the two Courts are well-acquainted in the manner of seasons.

Spring told him of her dilemma and the King listened long and considered her worries with an unusually grave face. He was wed to another of his court, and though they were of lower rank than he, he would not cast them aside for one of equal rank such as Spring.

He advised her to go north, for he had heard the Winter's High King was yet unwed, and that perhaps he or one of his court might agree to a marriage.

Spring thanked him gladly, and next day, her chariot flew north.

The land of Winter was bright and cold, but the chill did not bother Spring. Her season was partly born of Winter's fading and therefore did not shrink from such iciness.

She came upon a great mountain and found the Winter Court gathered together at its base, all still and silent as statutes, save for two that fought in their midst, their blades clashing together with a sound like thunder.

"What is this?" she asked a nearby Fae.

The Fae studied her, curious. "The High King fights for his throne, High Lady," the Fae said. "His opponent is the Prince of Sorrows, and his Highness claims that the previous King was slain through treachery by our current King's hand."

"And is there truth to this tale?" Spring asked.

The Fae shrugged. "There is not untruth to his tale, High Lady. And many would rather his Highness take the throne than have the King occupy it any longer."

Spring looked to the battlefield, where a dark Fae with a simple crown wielded faeblades against a Fae bearing the High Crown of Winter.

Their battle shook the earth, and although the ice cracked beneath the onlookers at times, they did not move.

Spring watched the Prince, finding in his proud carriage a nobility and sharpness that called to her. If she was to choose any to wed, she thought, it might be this Prince of Sorrows, who fought with such ferocity against a kinslayer.

The battle lasted for three days, and all that time Spring watched the Prince, and if he felt her gaze, he did not acknowledge it, his bright eyes only ever watching his opponent.

At dawn on the third day, the Prince of Sorrows cut down the High King of Winter and took the crown for his own.

"The court of swords holds that the High King betrayed our beloved King Mathon and slew him most cruelly and usurped that noble throne for his own!" the Prince called. "Does any Fae here dispute this judgement?"

None answered him.

"Then by right of conquest, I am your new High King!" the Prince declared and there arose a great cheer from many of the Fae.

The new King came then to Spring's side, curiosity in his sharp gaze.

"And who are you, High Lady, to visit Winter in this time of change?" he asked.

"I am Spring," Spring replied, "And I come looking for a Fae to rule beside me, in my Kingdom across the sea."

The King studied her, "Winter is very different from Spring, your Majesty," he said, "We are not of life as you and Summer are, but of decay and death."

"My sister is Fall, High King," Spring said, "I am no stranger to decay in all its forms."

The High King smiled, cold and dark as the bleakest winter night, but Spring was not frightened, though she knew some might find such an expression grim and fearful.

"Would then your Majesty consider courtship?" the High King asked, "I must warn you that we of Winter court for far longer than those of the other Courts."

"I would gladly court your Majesty," Spring said honestly. "Time is of no objection to me."

The High King smiled again, and this time, Spring could see the faintest hint of delight in his bright eyes.

And so it was, that Spring courted Winter, and found in him an equal with whom to share her kingdom.

It is said, that once upon a time, in the heart of the Blooming Wood, on an Isle where Fall meets Spring in an endless Cycle, a King of Winter and a Queen of Spring wed before their subjects, their Courts joined together in sacred alliance.


	4. Chapter 4

**Twelve Centuries since the Crystal War, the 1,** **2** **87th year of the reign of King Cydan**

Advisor Mathon studies the treatesies before him, idly listening to the sound of the freezing rain harrying the walls of Amythn.

The storms have been more frequent of late, and although Mathon is no longer High King, he worries for his people all the same. With the destruction of Tirnoch, the Cycle is mending slowly, and many Fae have returned, or gone into self-imposed exile, too ashamed to face their former comrades.

And there are those that none have heard from at all, Mathon muses, wondering not for the first time if some Fae were just lost to them completely.

No one has seen or heard from Gadflow, and perhaps they never would. Tirnoch may have well devoured the Fae usurper and consumed his very soul.

Mathon shakes his head sadly as another rumble of thunder sounds above. These storms have never in all their history been so violent and destructive; it bodes ill.

"You seem worried, Mathon," the voice of High King Cydan murmurs from the doorway of the library.

"It is only the storm, your Majesty," Mathon replies. "I've never seen such weather before. Their frequency is worrying."

"Do you think the mortals might have something to do with it?" High King Cydan asks, and Mathon looks up to see his King leaning against the doorway, watching him with sharp eyes.

Mathon thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. "No, your Majesty. They have not the magic or technology to shape the winds as they see fit."

"Not yet, anyway," Cydan says lowly, arms crossed.

Mathon is well aware of Cydan's dislike of mortal meddling with the seasons. There have been plenty of skirmishes with mortalkind over the past twenty centuries that illustrate that point perfectly.

And yet, Mathon knows that in the depths of Amythn, in a crystal chamber, the Godslayer of the Crystal War still sleeps. The only mortal that High King Cydan had ever loved, or so it was said.

"Is there anything I can do for you, your Majesty," Mathon asks.

"The Summer delegation is visiting next week," Cydan says, "I trust that preparations are well underway?"

"Yes, your Majesty," Mathon says, reaching for the stack of papers that all detail the upcoming delegation's schedule. "Very nearly finished save a few minor details."

"Good," Cydan says, his gaze somewhat distant.

He's tracing the sigil of the crystal tree etched into his bracers again, Mathon notes. The sigil of the Lady Godslayer, one she herself had apparently designed upon the ending of the Crystal War.

The bracers had been a gift, Cydan had said, when Mathon had finally asked about them a few centuries back. "A name-day gift," Cydan had said, looking amused, "though we Fae do not count name-days as mortals do. So, Liriel decided that my name day was in Midwinter, and gave me the bracers. The prisimere was only just growing white again, and she chose the crystal from beneath the Hallowed Tree."

"Is there anything else, your Majesty?" Mathon asks now as the silence seems to drag on, "you seem distracted of late."

"Twelve centuries, Mathon, and we've yet to find any hint of a way to break her curse," Cydan says quietly, looking at Mathon with dark eyes.

There is a deep anguish there, and looking at his King now, Mathon wonders at Cydan's strength. The very embodiment of the House of Sorrows, and the one of the few who had survived the House's destruction under the leadership of Bisarane.

Cydan has ruled for over a thousand years, but he bears the weight of those centuries easily. The longest reign of a Fae monarch, Mathon knows, is over ten thousand years, the reign of High Queen Aoife, who together with her wife, the Queen Eadgyð, had sealed away Tirnoch in the Age of Emergence.

The Queens had succeeded and their victory had brought the Faelands peace for many millennia after. At least, Mathon thinks, until Gadflow had broken the Cycle asunder.

"My King," Mathon begins, and pauses because what can he say? His King is in love with a mortal, and such an entanglement that can only lead to sorrow and despair.

Cydan waves a hand at him, halting anything else Mathon might have said. His jaw is clenched tight, eyes hard and cold as the very heart of Winter. He half-turns away, to gaze out at the sheeting rain.

"Come find me before court is due to open," is all he says before he stalks away.

Mathon sighs as Cydan vanishes around the corner. His King, he fears, is withdrawing, slowly consumed by his grief for his lost love. Mathon has never heard of any Fae returning to the Great Cycle through heartbreak, but he worries that High King Cydan might be the first.

It's a few hours later, when Mathon descends into the heart of Amythn, where the Godslayer sleeps. He's searched everywhere else for the King, and a few of the guards had said that they'd seen His Majesty enter the heart of Amythn, nearly an hour prior.

Cydan leans against the edge of the Godslayer's tomb, staring down at the Godslayer's peaceful face.

"Your Majesty," Mathon says quietly, barely above a whisper. It seems wrong to speak loudly here, where a Hero rested in eternal sleep, guarded by an immortal Fae.

Cydan doesn't look up, his fingers idly tracing the outline of the Godslayer's face through the crystal. "What is it, Mathon?" his own voice is whisper-quiet as well.

"The court merely awaits your presence, your Majesty," Mathon reports.

Cydan is silent for a long moment, an unmoving statue.

"Your Majesty?" Mathon asks as the minutes wear on.

"I _heard_ you," Cydan says softly, but there is winter ice in his voice. It's a tone that Mathon knows well enough to know that saying anything else will get him frozen to the wall in a heartbeat if Cydan is angry or possibly stabbed.

Mathon has seen Cydan in a rage before. The Fae is deadly cold, and absolutely brutal, the very personification of the heart of Winter.

So Mathon stays quiet.

Cydan closes his eyes, head bowed, hands tracing a sigil upon the crystal that glows with silvery light. A light that is echoed by something within the tomb.

Mathon blinks; he'd heard rumor that the Godslayer had carried with her a totem of Faekind, but to bury it with her…

"You seem puzzled, Mathon," Cydan says, and Mathon realizes that the King has stepped back from the tomb to study him.

"I did not think the rumors true, your Majesty," Mathon says, "that the Godslayer carried a totem of the Fae with her."

Cydan offers him a bitter smile. "You did not think I would ever gift something so precious to me to a mortal woman? Nor leave it with her in her tomb?"

Mathon nods.

"I burned my totem with her body when she fell the first time," Cydan says, and there is an old grief in his eyes. "She returned with it, and told me that she awoke with it upon her breast, singing to her as our crystals now sing to us. That it was her guide out of the darkness into which she had been reborn. How could I not leave it with her?"

He strides past Mathon, "Come, we've still court to open."

Mathon follows, while behind them, the totem of the Winter King shines, resting upon the heart of the Godslayer.


End file.
